From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily on Sunday.

Today, the reality show Love on the Spectrum, which follows autistic adults as they search for love, has just released its fourth season.

The show has largely attracted praise for its realistic, its sensitive portrayals of neurodiverse people,

and it's become one of the most popular and unlikely hits on Netflix.

Today, Anna Peel, a contributing writer for The Times,

talked with the creator and the cast of Love on the Spectrum,

about the show's origin story, the nuanced criticism,

and why it has resonated with so many people.

It's Sunday, April 19th.

Anna Peel, welcome to The Daily.

Thank you so much for having me.

You are a culture writer, but you are also a reality TV expert, which I like to think of myself as a reality TV expert just based on how much I watch. But you have actually spent a lot of time reporting and writing extensively about reality TV.

So just to start the conversation, I wonder if you could, for people who have not seen this show, tell us a brief overview of the premise of love on the spectrum.

So love on the spectrum follows mostly young people who are on the autism spectrum while they learn to date often for the first time,

the show will set them up, they'll matchmake them, sometimes they'll follow them to speed dating

events or things like that. It's incredibly popular. It's one of the biggest shows on Netflix,

and it's so unique to have a show that is actually socially responsible, but is also scratching the

itch that people have to watch reality dating series. This show is noteworthy for approximately

one million reasons, but not the least of which is that reality TV is a genre of television

that is arguably the most exploitative. The premise of so many shows is that people debase themselves for your amusement.

And this show has the potential to be an absolute train wreck of a show, right?

Like this is walking such an ethical tightrope.

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